Ivory Coast: cocoa invites itself into the presidential campaign

(Illustration, December 2019, Côte d'Ivoire) Côte d'Ivoire has around 1 million producers and cocoa provides a livelihood, directly or indirectly, between a quarter and a third of the population.

REUTERS / Thierry Gouegnon

Text by: RFI Follow

5 mins

This Thursday, October 1 marked the launch of the 2020-2021 cocoa campaign in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

It was also this Thursday that the launch took place in Yamoussoukro of the National Cocoa and Chocolate Days, an annual meeting that marks the start of the season.

The opportunity for Alassane Ouattara, president of the world's largest cocoa producer with 2 million tonnes per year, to announce, less than a month before the presidential election, a sharp increase in the price to the planter.

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Côte d'Ivoire is the world's leading cocoa producer, with 40% of the market.

Cocoa represents 10% of Ivorian GDP, 40% of its export earnings, and supports 5 million people, or about a fifth of the Ivorian population, according to the World Bank.

The country has about 1 million producers, hence the interest for any presidential candidate to attract their good graces.

And the Ouattara candidate does not skimp on the means.

After the premium of 400 dollars per ton, negotiated last year, intended for the producer, and which comes into force for this 2020 2021 campaign, the government concedes a sharp increase in the purchase price, from 825 F to 1000 F per kilo this year, in “edge of fields”, according to the terminology employed, reports our correspondent in Abidjan,

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The Café-Cacao council endorsed the promise made by President Alassane Ouattara during his recent visit to the Moronou region, one of the richest in cocoa, near Yamoussoukro.

This measure was announced in the midst of the election period and in the midst of the PDCI stronghold of his opponent Henri Konan Bédié.

So when Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani, the Minister of Agriculture and associate campaign director of Alassane Ouattara addresses the planters, it is to remind them of the upcoming deadlines.

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In an agricultural environment deemed rather favorable to the PDCI, the stakes are high.

Thanks to the announcement of this year's prize, Alassane Ouattara also sends them a personal message.

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The price announced by the Café-Cacao council corresponds to the minimum requested by the producers' union.

He welcomes the decision, but he hopes more in the years to come, and above all, already, that this purchase price will be respected throughout the harvest, which is only rarely the case.

Kanga Koffi is the president of the union of cocoa producers ANAPROCI, listen to his reaction at the microphone of François Mazet of the Africa editorial staff of RFI.

Francois Mazet

Neighboring Ghana, with whom Côte d'Ivoire coordinates its cocoa policy, particularly in terms of prices, is subject to the same problems.

And at the same electoral deadlines.

The presidential election in Ghana is on December 7th.

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